Various data processing systems have been developed including storage systems, cellular telephone systems, and radio transmission systems. In such systems data is transferred from a sender to a receiver via some medium. For example, in a storage system, data is sent from a sender (i.e., a write function) to a receiver (i.e., a read function) via a storage medium. As information is stored and transmitted in the form of digital data, errors are introduced that, if not corrected, can corrupt the data and render the information unusable. The effectiveness of any transfer is impacted by any losses in data caused by various factors. For example, as the recording density of magnetic disk drives increases, the noise, jitter and distortion increases, making it more difficult to recover the original data.